


Now Laid to Rest

by MaeveBran



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-01
Updated: 2015-07-01
Packaged: 2018-04-07 04:37:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4249542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaeveBran/pseuds/MaeveBran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jo joins Henry and Abe for Abigail's wake and learns about their true relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now Laid to Rest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Draycevixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draycevixen/gifts).



> Takes place between "The Night in Question" (Episode 21) and "The Last Death of Henry Morgan" (Episode 22)

Detective Jo Martinez hung back as Doctor Henry Morgan and his roommate Abraham approached the old fashioned table that functioned as the receptionist's desk at the funeral home. She was here for moral support and didn't want to be in either of the grieving men's way. Yet she didn't want to be so far away that she couldn't step to their side quickly if they needed her.

Henry stepped up and said they were there for Abigail Morgan. That couldn't be right, Jo thought. They had been searching for Sylvia Blake. Abigail Morgan was the name of Henry's lost wife. Suddenly things started to make sense in a Henry Morgan crazy theory sort of way. The way Henry had been acting- attacking a Federal judge and insisting about knowing what had happened to the nurse. If the victim had been his wife, then that would even explain why Henry had missed so much in the autopsy. But there was one glaring flaw in that theory: Henry was only thirty-five years old. Sylvia or Abigail had been missing thirty years. If she was Henry's Abigail then Henry would have had to have married a sixty year old woman at the age of five.

“Detective?” Henry asked as he and Abe walked back to Jo. “Are you all right?”

“Uh, yes,” Jo said as she gave herself an internal little shake. “Ready to go?”

“We are finished here,” Henry confirmed.

The trio walked out of the funeral home and to Jo's parked car. By prior agreement, Jo drove back to the shop. Henry and Abe sat side by side in the back of the car with the Doctor holding onto the urn the whole ride.

“You'll join us for a little wake, Jo?” Abe asked once Jo had parked her car next to his behind the shop.

“I'd be honored,” Jo said. She followed the two men into the shop and up to their apartment.

Henry placed the urn reverently on the mantle next to the old clock.

“You heard the name I gave, I take it?” Henry asked.

“I did,” Jo answered. “You said Abigail Morgan. It has me confused.”

“I'm missing something here,” Abe interrupted. “Why would would Mom's name confuse you, Jo?”

“Because months ago, I confessed that the great love of my life was my wife, Abigail,” Henry explained.

“Aww, I get it,” Abe said. “You have to tell her now.”

“I was just getting to that,” Henry said. He went to the cabinet on the other side of the room and brought out a bottle of expensive Scotch and three glasses. “But first, this is a wake so a toast.” He poured the glasses and handed them around. “To Abigail.” He saluted towards the urn. The other two did the same and they drank the toast.

“Now,” Henry said after he drained the glass. “The long story how Abigail could be both Abraham's mother and my wife even if she had been missing and dead these thirty years.”

“That would be nice,” Jo said.

“You may want to sit down for this,” Abe said a he directed Jo to one of the couches. She sat and looked at the two men.

“The truth is I am Abraham's father,” Henry said.

Jo's mouth gaped open as she looked from one to the other.

“It's true,” Abe agreed. “Mom found me in Auschwitz, as a baby, and brought me to a doctor to be examined...”

“I took one look and fell in love with both the nurse and baby,” Henry looked fondly at Abe. “Once Abigail and I married, we adopted Abraham.” He put his arm around his son's shoulder. “He has been the joy of my very long life.”

Jo looked from one man to the other. The relationship was proclaimed on their faces. It explained so very much about them. Now that her shock was lessening, she carefully placed her glass on the coffee table so she wouldn't drop it.

“But how?” Jo asked. “I get how Abe is your son, but how are you old enough to have been a doctor after Auschwitz?”

“Pops,” Abraham said. “You muddled the story. You used to be better at this.”

“It has been sixty years since I've told the story to anyone,” Henry said. “I'm a bit rusty.”

“That's one way of putting it,” Abe said as he refilled his glass and sat next to Jo.

“You said you've lived a very long life,” Jo interrupted Father and son before they could bicker anymore. “Just how long a life?”

“You've seen my file?” Henry asked as he splashed more alcohol into both his glass and hers.

“Yes,” Jo answered.

“And my birth date is listed as what?” Henry asked.

“September 19, 1979,” Jo said as she took a swallow of the amber liquid in her glass.

“That's mostly correct,” Henry said. “Only that first nine in the year is wrong. It should be a seven.”

Jo thought. That would make it 1779. It couldn't be. He'd be …

“Two hundred and thirty-six on my next birthday,” Henry said as if he could read her mind.

“It's going to be a bitch to fit that many candles on the cake,” Abe said. “I still remember how Mom nearly set the dining room on fire on his two hundredth.”

Henry smiled slightly at the memory. Abigail had insisted that Abe come home for that birthday, even though he had lived in California at the time. She had bought a small round cake from the bakery and then proceeded to put two hundred candles on it. In order to fit that many she'd had to put some on the side and the cake had resembled a flaming hedgehog. The last row of candles had stuck straight out the bottom of the cake and the flames had caught the table cloth on fire. Fortunately Henry had quickly blown out the candles and Abe had managed to put out the table cloth before the fire had done much but scorch a patch of the dining table.

“That was one for the history books, Abe,” Henry said fondly to his son.

Watching the two men interact, Jo began to believe the story. It was incredible--as in, unbelievable and crazy. But it would explain so much. Suddenly lots of Henry's little comments clicked into place. He'd been dropping hints about living a long time over and over. He'd even mentioned it taking centuries to get as eccentric as he was. She should have figured it out sooner, particularly after the stalker at Christmas had brought up the idea of immortality. 

“Are you immortal?” Jo asked.

“Yes,” Henry said with relief as he sat down on the other couch. As much as he dreaded her reaction, actually telling her was a weight off of his chest.

“So you can't die?” she asked for confirmation.

“I die,” Henry said as he drained his glass. “I just don't stay dead.”

“I see,” she said.

“He comes back,” Abe interjected. “Naked. In the river.”

Jo looked at the older man next to her. Abe nodded in agreement to the question her face was asking but her voice was not. Jo thought about it some more and put it together with what she knew of Henry.

“Those arrests for indecent exposure?” Jo finally asked.

“The aftermaths of my deaths,” Henry said. “Though not all of them have resulted in my arrest.”

“Thank God,” Abe said. “Or we'd be running out of money paying those fines.”

Jo sat stunned. She had seen the file. There had been more than a few arrests. Just how often did he die?

“How many times?” Jo asked. “In the time we've known each other, how many times have you died, Henry?”

“More than I'd like,” Abe muttered.

“Abe,” Henry said with a certain amount of parental authority. “Seven, if you count the subway accident that brought you to my morgue to begin with.”

“Six times?” Jo exclaimed “In eight months? That's a lot isn't it?”

“It is,” Henry agreed. “I have managed to go years between deaths in the past.”

“Only because Mom was around and you took less chances,” Abe said.

Jo sat trying to process all this. She just looked stunned and bordering on catatonic as she tried to process.

“Are you all right, Detective?” Henry asked.

“Just trying to process everything you said,” Jo explained.

“Come on, Pops,” Abe nudged Henry. “Let's go make dinner and let her have some peace to process this in.”

Henry nodded and followed his son to the kitchen.

“Mom's Lasagna?” Abe suggested as he got out Abigail's cookbook. 

“That sounds great,” Henry got out the matching aprons that had been Abe's Father's Day gift to him last year.

Abe started on the secret sauce while Henry oversaw the noodles.

“She's taking it well, don't you think?” Abe asked when the sauce was simmering.

“Certainly better than Nora did,” Henry agreed. 

“You never said how Mom reacted,” Abe said. He turned to face his Father. “When she first found out.”

“Your Mother was a saint,” Henry said with a small smile. “I had tried to avenge her on a former boyfriend of hers. He was taller and stronger than I. We got into a fight and he knifed me. Abigail showed up. I collapsed in her arms and the crowd dispersed so I died with only Abigail as witness.”

Henry took the noodles off the stove and drained them in the sink. The cloud of steam covered the few tears that Henry felt forming as he remembered that night.

“I was going to leave, after I came back in the Thames,” Henry continued. “But I had to see you one last time, so I crept back into the house we were living in.” He turned back to face his son. “She came in as I was kissing you goodbye. I tried to stammer an explanation but she just walked up to me, in her dressing gown, and wrapped her arms around me and called me a poor man.” He swallowed back more tears at the memory. “I've told a few people over the years. And a few more have found out by accident. But Abigail was the only one to try to comfort me instead of the other way around.”

“Mom was a special lady,” Abe agreed. He shuffled over to stand next to Henry and they stood in companionable silence for a moment, each thinking about the remarkable woman who had brought them together.

“This lasagna is not going to make itself,” Abe said after a few minutes. He went back to the task at hand. Henry put the memory to the back of his mind and helped his son.

The two Morgan men made dinner and set the table for three. Henry went to invite Jo in to dinner as Abe dished up. She had recovered enough to be hungry. Together the three of them did justice to the meal, all the while Henry and Abe answered Jo's questions and shared stories. Both men had been more than happy to finally be able to let their real relationship shine through the meal. Henry practically beamed with pride every time Abe had called him 'Dad' and 'Pops'. Abe, for his part was happy to be able to finally acknowledge Henry as his father in front of someone again. 

It was late when Jo went home at the end of the evening. Most of the doubts and questions that had been building up in her mind, about her partner, had been answered, and more than a few new ones as well. She had felt accepted and welcomed into their little family and that was a much happier way to end the day than she thought it would be when she had agreed to go with Abe and Henry to pick up the urn this morning. She hoped that Abigail was somewhere, watching her boys and happy at the way she had finally been laid to rest, with secrets explained and happy memories shared.


End file.
